Thank you all for your feedback and thoughts.
Perhaps if I tell you an example of two about how I " self medicate " and more importantly how it came to be you will at least know some of what I have done and why.
First I want to comment a bit on the ever popular news stories about " Opioid " over-doses in the US ( and I believe elsewhere in the world ) It is a huge, hideous problem and doctors, law-makers, towns, states, federal governments, hospitals, and so on are TRYING to figure out what to do. It is heart breaking to hear about all of these people dying and they are in all age brackets. I think it is important to know why and from what because something has changed and with that change comes death. VERY SAD!
I can not say for sure but I'm guessing based on things that I hear that most of these overdoses are not so much from RX'd opioid medications. Most of the deaths are from those people who chose to IV what they think is Heroin on later to find out that the drug that they have been using for a long period of time is now cut with Fentanyl an opiod medication that is many times stronger than Heroin and it is used legally in pain patches and in hospitals for severe pain. How it gets to the street I am not sure. What form it is in I am not sure. I hear that it is a lot less expensive than Heroin which is a rock bottom prices anyway but to make bigger profits the heroin is cut with Fentanyl and the smallest amount causes respiratory failure.
From the information that I have gathered those mighty powerful narcotics are much cheaper than pills. In their twisted addicted minds the logic starts speaking to them to buy what is cheaper and will go further. But know what the right amount is, is difficult to figure out. You can guess what happens next.
In my own research I've also discovered that this data base now exists that red flags doctors, hospitals, clinics and just about anyone who write legitimate pain medications IF something questionable arises. If that happens it is not unusual for YOUR DOCTOR to cut you off immediately. If you have never experienced opioid withdrawal then you have no idea how hideous that experience is and those doctors who " are just following the rules/law " wind up contributing IMHO to the process of searching for that which the pain medication person knows nothing about and creates a perfect storm for death. Instead of counseling the patient they throw them to the sharks and they ( the prescribing doctors ) see no responsibility in putting their patients in harms way.
There are so many " choices " that are made at this time but talking about how to resolve the issue is not one of them.
The minutes people start picking sides and blaming others the problem starts rolling down the hill even faster than can be imagined. In their quest to stop opioid use these agencies and doctors are in great part contributing to the problem.
Once again I will own this as my OPINION. But it is worthy of further consideration because I think that less deaths would be happening if everyone had a clear view of what is occurring all over and why....then how to not pull the plug and think that this is all that THEY are responsible to do. That is WRONGHEADED!
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This part is a detail of something that I did and found to work for me when nothing else worked.
I awoke one night with this pain in my big toe that was the worst pain I had ever experienced in my life. It was 1 AM. I tried every medication that I had, I tried ICE and HEAT, and Epson Salt soaks, I several creme's like aspire-creme, Ben-Gay, Capsin, Lidocain and even a creme formulated by one of my doctors at a " compounding pharmacy. Nothing worked and I was later told it was a case of " The Gout " It would come on every 17 seconds and last for 7 secods but that 7 seconds was SOOOO BAD I wondered if cutting my toe off wouldn't be less painful. While this pain existed I could not sleep at all. I made it through 2 episodes of this coming on unexpectedly. Not sleeping seemed to trigger the Fibro which I didn't even know was happening. It all lead to the vicious circle of pain and sleeplessness and I dreaded the thought of this every happening again.
While in a motel spending the night to see a specialist the next day, I was startled to immediate pain by an unexpected attack around 1 AM. Strangely enough each attack happened around 1 AM meaning that I hardly got ANY SLEEP. So out of desperation I crushed up one 5MG Oxycodone into a powder and mixed it with aloe hand sanitizer and rubbed it on my big toe. In 15 minutes the pain started to subside. In 30 minutes I fell fast asleep. My one PCP doctor thought I was a GENIUS the other lectured me about experimenting with medications. All I know is this: NOW, if that big toe flares up I have a formula that works.
And THAT is one case of self medicating.
I've come up with a few other remedies and all I would like to say about them is these were the type of things that Grandma used to do before drug companies advertised constantly about medications who's side effects sound like something out of a horror movie.
I'm not reckless. I think about my actions before doing anything.